Douglas Preston - Two Graves

Abruptly, a pebble arced through the air, hit the lightbulb, and the room was plunged into darkness. Proctor immediately fired in the direction from which the pebble had been launched, the light from the adjacent room streaming in and providing a little illumination.

He lowered the gun, breathing hard. How many rounds did he have left? He normally kept count, but this time he had lost track. He’d fired twenty, plus at least fifteen more. Which left perhaps five in this magazine and ten in the final magazine.

His nightmare—running out of ammo—was starting to come true.

As he crouched in the black corner, he realized his strategy had been a failure. He was dealing with an adversary of tremendous foresight and skill.

He would need a new strategy. The killer probably expected him to continue on, to keep probing, searching, as he had been doing. So instead he would now turn around and retrace his steps. He would force the killer to come to him.

Creeping along the wall, he reached the doorway to the next room. Light streamed through from its single bulb. This room, too, had been full of bottles, and the floor was covered with glass. He now faced the same problem he had posed his adversary. He could not move without making noise.

Maybe. Crouching, he slipped off his shoes. Keeping low, he inched around the archway into the next room in his stockinged feet, keeping to the deep shadows behind the shattered cases. Slowly, slowly he moved, in complete silence, ignoring the broken glass that cut into the soles of his feet. Between each step he paused, listening.

He heard a brief intake of breath, to his right, behind a massive row of broken shelves. Unmistakable. The killer must also be moving in stockinged feet.

Did the killer see him? Impossible to know.

Unpredictable—that’s what he had to keep in mind.

He erupted into sudden, furious motion, running straight at the long, tall row of shelves, slamming into them and heaving them over, the shelving falling against the next row and the next, like dominoes, the already-broken and shot-up frames crashing down like a house of cards, trapping the person within in a storm of broken glass, chemicals, specimens, and twisted shelving.

As he stepped back, he felt a sudden blow to his arm and his .45 went flying. He spun, swinging his fist around, but the black figure had already flitted aside, slamming him in the ribs and sending him sprawling onto the glass.

Proctor rolled and was up in one swift motion, the jagged neck of a broken beaker in his hand. The killer jumped back, picking up his own piece of jagged glass. They circled each other warily.

Proctor, an expert with a knife, lunged, but the killer skipped aside and slashed at him, cutting his forearm. Proctor swept back and managed to rip the killer’s shirt, but the killer once again—with supernatural speed—turned and avoided the main thrust.

Never in his life had Proctor seen anyone move so fast or anticipate so well. He advanced on the killer, slashing again and again, forcing him to retreat but scoring no hits. The killer backed against a table, dropped his shard of glass, and picked up a heavy retort. Proctor pressed his advantage, advancing and slashing. But then suddenly, as if from nowhere, the killer—who feinted back again as if once again in retreat—twisted around in the most extraordinary movement and slammed the retort against the side of Proctor’s head, the heavy glass shattering and sending Proctor to the floor, dazed.

In a flash the killer was on top of Proctor, pinning him, the jagged glass of the retort pressed into his throat, right up against his carotid artery, with just enough pressure to cut the skin but go no deeper.

Proctor, dazed, stupefied in shock and pain, could not believe he had been bested. It did not seem possible. And yet he had been defeated—at the very thing he was most skilled in.

“Go ahead,” he said hoarsely. “Finish it.”

The killer laughed, exposing gleaming white teeth. “You know perfectly well that if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. Oh, no. You have a message to deliver to your master. And I have a brother who needs… attending to.”

As he spoke, a long arm snaked out and removed the key to Tristram’s room from Proctor’s pocket.

“And now, good night.”

A sudden, stunning blow to the side of Proctor’s head caused the world to shut down in darkness.

44

IN THE APARTMENT OVERLOOKING FIRST AVENUE, LIEUTENANT Vincent D’Agosta paced restlessly. He threw himself down on the living room couch, turned on the television, ran aimlessly through the channels, then turned it off again. He got up, walked to the sliding door, and looked out over the darkened balcony. He went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, took out a beer, thought better of it, replaced it and closed the door.

Every few minutes he glanced toward the phone, then glanced away again.

He knew he should join Laura in bed, get some sleep, but he also knew sleep just wouldn’t come. In the fallout that followed his meeting with Singleton, he’d been given a so-called command discipline and relieved of the squad commander post on the hotel killings—as Singleton had pointed out, he was damn lucky not to have fared worse, no thanks to Pendergast. The thought of getting up in the morning and going back to his desk and picking up the pieces of half a dozen piece-of-shit crimes was almost more than he could stand.

He looked over at the phone again. He might as well get it over with—he’d never feel easy until he got it off his chest.

He sighed, then picked up the phone and dialed Pendergast’s cell.

It was answered on the third ring. “Yes?” came the cool southern drawl.

“Pendergast? It’s me. Vinnie.”

There was a pause. When the voice sounded again, it had dropped several dozen degrees in temperature. “Yes?”

“Where are you?”

“In my car. Driving home.”

“Good. I thought you’d still be awake. Listen, I just wanted to say… well, how sorry I am about what happened.”

When there was no answer, D’Agosta struggled on. “I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I was squad commander, it was my duty to report any and all possible evidence. Singleton was coming down hard on me—I was backed into a corner.”

Still no reply. D’Agosta licked his lips. “Look, I know you’ve gone through a lot these past several weeks. I’m your friend, I want to help any way I can. But this… this is my job. I had no choice. You’ve got to understand.”

When it came, Pendergast’s voice was as brittle, yet as steely, as he’d ever heard it. “Even one with the meanest comprehension would understand. You betrayed a confidence.”

D’Agosta took a deep breath. “You can’t take it like that. I mean, we’re not talking about the sanctity of the confessional here. Withholding the identity of a serial killer, even if it is your own flesh and blood—that’s illegal. Trust me, better it came out now than later.”

No response.

“They took me off the case. And you—let’s face it—you were never on it to begin with. Let’s put that all behind us now.”

“My son—as you so kindly pointed out—is a serial killer. How, precisely, am I supposed to put that behind me?”

“Then let me help you. On the side. I’ll still have access and I can pass developments on to you. We’ve worked that way before—we can do it again.”

Once again, Pendergast was silent.

“Well? What do you say?”

“What do I say? What I say is this: exactly how much longer am I to be burdened with self-serving justifications and unwanted offers of assistance?”